This topic has been added for the sole purpose of providing my insight onto the world of the Magickal, and solely that. It can be quoted, referenced, and such for the sake of Occult studies, Magickal application, and other such Practitioners out there to do their Craft/Art/etc.
The following manuscript is translated from chicken-scratch made with a pencil beneath moonlight to it's current version - which is to say that I simply had a hard time reading some of it and maybe a vocabulary word or two has been added. It originated from conversing with Spirits, Trialed operations, and a burdoned Belief in what I do to formulate the mindset set forth from my work... It is not meant to strike down other mindsets, or set these within stone-
I don't know if someone else thought it up before I did, but these Ponderings are all of my own means and not stolen. If it has been published, please inform me-

The Ritual
... The Ritual is an oddity in the Magickal Processes. As it is stemmed from traditions both old, new, and an intermediate mix, it seems as if the effects of the Ritual vary by many things-
The Ritual itself is composed of Measures to manipulate energies to the world about you.
Some believe that these Rituals are the exact (and only) way to achieve such an effect simply because of Age. However, if this was so, then it would be that the value of a spell comes from simply how long it has been around - and that a simple cave Drawing done in Ritual could be considered High Magick.
Others claim that the Ritual's composition makes it work. A pinch of Wolfsbane, a black candle, and words recited within Gaelic tones to make rain forth from the Heavens and love come to their will would suit them perfectly - but if this were so, then the other Variations of the Magick would be Useless, and fail.

And the following epiphany dawned upon me one morrowful moonlit night wilst conversing with a particularly Wise Spirit:
The Ritual is not the component that makes the Magick. It is the Caster's will!
(The enlightenment dawned upon my brow so bright to the literal point of me running barefoor through thorns and mud, hurdling up a fence and climbing into my 2nd story window, reaching down into the darkness to search for my notebook amongst the Shadows.)
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Afterward Ponderings
In later ponderings on the idea, I toyed with the idea of why Rituals work.......... It was simply our Raw Belief that allowed them to.
As the Christians who need no Ritual to take a knee and pray for help (neither Timeless, nor a strict Composition) or the fanatics who dancd about in a field to make it rain, it was not the RITUAL.
The Ritual's existance was to satiate the Mind's need for a system and to make one's Will center to gather the energies from about themselves, and focous them toward a centered and symbolized goal. It was a systemized order, and was Symbolic in it's purest form. This contortion of the Universe's energies was not the Ritual's doing.
The Ritual itself (oddly enough consisting of Tools and words) was nothing more than a Tool itself in the grand design. Humanity had deemed unto itself that it could never be so simple as actively focousing, chaneling energies, and such to the point of Magick. It was deemed upon itself to satiate the Universe by asking Gods and Spirits to do what was deemed the Impossible, and only within their powers to do - and so the Ritual was birthed from the minds of Early People. It was a connection to the Gods, Spirits, and that Connection to the Energies of the Universe.

OH! How do I dare write this Blasphemy even amongst many others?! At 10: odds I would be called a loon, even amongst others of my Practice.

If only they noted the Simple Fact: We ourselves, being Spirits within, ARE connected. The feats we seek to do are bound by simply our Minds, and our Will to do it! It could be argued that with the cleansed mind and the Will of a Child the Mountains could be cast into the Sea. Water could be halted in it's flow. Fire could be made to Freeze. The possibilities of what I am implicating is -LIMITLESS!-

This was successfully conformed when, in this state, I performed Konstantinos' Banishing with simple lifting of my Palm and a pulsation of drawn energies. No words. No Ritualistic stances. No mindset except with that of the Blank Slate - and so the Banishing took form by my Will and nothing more. The Orb of energies he had spent words and gathering to formulate had all at once formed within my Palm and pulsated outwards in the form of the Sphere.

The Ritual is nothing but our own device - it is not the Essence of Higher Magick. It is a Tool to achieve the mindset to do so.
The Highest of High Magick requires no words of Man. The devices of the Physical's value to Magick are only what we embew it with, and the act in which we use it. The point at which the Planes join, and all things interwoven is within the dephs of our Mind, and within still remain our Primitive Barriers.
As do mine.

-October 19, 2004

"Water, water, everywhere,And all the boards did shrink;Water, water, everywhere,Nor any drop to drink."